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Bulloch v. State

Trial counsel was not deficient for calling the defendant as the only defense witness, since it was reasonable trial strategy to not present evidence in order to preserve the right to make the final closing argument to the jury.

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Charles Aldon Bulloch filed this appeal from his conviction for the murder of Paul McKeen, Jr.1 Bulloch asserts reversible error with respect to the admission of certain hearsay testimony at trial and with respect to the instruction to the jury regarding venue. He also asserts the trial court erred in denying his motion for new trial on the ground of ineffective assistance of counsel.

This Court has previously reviewed and summarized the evidence presented at trial in the appeal filed by Bulloch’s co-defendant Johnny Vernon Phillips. See Phillips v. State, 280 Ga. 728 632 SE2d 131 2006. Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence shows Bulloch was an admitted drug dealer. McKeen owed Bulloch money for a cocaine purchase. A few days prior to McKeen’s death, Bulloch got into a fist fight with McKeen and threatened to beat McKeen to death if he did not pay the money. On the evening of February 27, 1990, McKeen was with his wife in a bar called “The Pub.” Phillips and Bulloch were also there with co-defendants Guy Walter Hardaway and James Randall Reagan.2 McKeen and Bulloch played a game of pool, with the stakes being “double or nothing” on a debt, and Bulloch won the game. McKeen’s wife left him in the company of Reagan and another man who was not charged with this crime. Later in the evening, Phillips and Bulloch took McKeen in a black Mustang convertible to a pull-off on the road on Pine Mountain in Harris County. Michael Railey followed them there in order to purchase drugs from Bulloch. When Railey approached the car that Bulloch was driving, McKeen asked him for a ride back to The Pub. Phillips, seated in the back seat with McKeen, refused to let him go and told Railey that McKeen was either going to pay the money he owed or get a beating.

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